Running In Place
by Cleopatra Antoinette
Summary: Their story couldn't be told in just one sitting. It was sort of spread out like a map, and you could point to one spot and say "We went from here to here," but that didn't make it any easier to those wanting to hear their tale. It was messy and complicated, and most of all, long as hell, but at the end of it all, they wouldn't have wanted any other way.


Okay, this was SUPPOSED to be a drabble set, but they all turned out much longer than that. I can't say that I mind though. I'm happy with all of them. REALLY happy. So they're going out as they are.

I did the iPod shuffle challenge (though it can work with any music player). You put your music on shuffle and write drabbles based on the first ten songs that come up. They can be upwards from 100 words, and you can only skip if you really, honestly don't think you can do anything with the song, or if it's just music and no lyrics.

I've been meaning to write something for Sonic for some time, but haven't really gotten around to it. But NOW, FINALLY, I have something.

These drabbles are mostly SonAmy with a hint of KnuxRouge, so if you don't like those, then deal with it. They aren't really written in chronological order, so if one seems like it should go before another, then you can pretend it should. They may or may not be connected, one right after the other, but if it works out that way, so much the better.

Rated for language in one particular part.

I don't own Sonic the Hedgehog or any affiliated characters. Enjoy.

* * *

**Running In Place**

**Clocks - Coldplay**

Well, the evening had been nothing short of a grand failure. The frustration that she had felt earlier that day towards her lack of disappearing feelings had not eased, as she had hoped it would. Oh, no. It had gotten even worse that before.

All she wanted was one date. Just one date where she could go out with a guy and not think of _him_. Was that so much to ask? For two months she had avoided him like the plague, tried to find someone new, and get over him. But noooo. No, no, it just didn't work like that. No matter what, she ended up comparing her date to him, or something would make her think of him, and the rest of the night would be spent trying to pick apart her guy for the night with overly critical appraisals.

But the date was over and done with, and her feet were sore. She walked home alone from the train station, trying not to limp as she walked, and by the time she reached her door, Amy Rose was well and truly exhausted.

But when she looked up, all that seemed to fade away, because sitting on her front steps, waiting for her, was a familiar blue figure, and a much-missed smile.

Sighing inwardly at her lack of self-control, she moved towards him with a grin slowly spreading across her own face. "Hello, Sonic," she said.

**Do You Want That Love? - From the movie 'Mad Money'**

"Rouge, I think this is a bad idea," said Amy Rose for the hundredth time that night. The white bat simply looked over her shoulder at the pink hedgehog with an impish grin.

"Look, honey, do you want to get the guy or not?"

Rouge had her there. With a resigned nod, Amy followed Rouge through the narrow hallway of the club, feeling uncomfortable in her form-fitting, strapless red dress that hugged her curves more than she liked. The dress had looked gorgeous on the mannequin, and so had the shoes, but once she was in them, she felt like she couldn't breathe.

But then they were by the bar, and they were walking past the table where Sonic and Knuckles sat, and the two of them were watching the girls with slack jaws, and she didn't feel so bad all of a sudden. "Hey, Knuckles, Sonic," she said easily. Then the two _femme fatales_ walked right past them to the bar, where at least three guys they had never met immediately offered to buy them drinks. When a red arm and a beige arm suddenly landed on either side of Rouge and Amy, immediately cutting off the other men, the two girls looked at each other and couldn't help but smirk and wink.

**Stolen - Dashboard Confessional**

_Oh, please,_ she was begging inwardly. _Just one kiss._ Just one kiss, even on the cheek, to show that when he smiled at her, he wasn't just trying to pacify her and make her leave him alone for the rest of the day. Just one kiss to show that when he hugged her back, it was because he wanted to, and not because he was afraid of being smashed with her Piko Piko hammer. Just one kiss, to show that every day she chased after him, and fought with him, and tried to help him a myriad of ways, it didn't go unnoticed, and seeing her face didn't make him feel disgusted, and hearing her voice didn't make him cringe.

"Amy," he said softly, looking at her with that intense gaze.

"Y-yes?" Oh, god, her heart was going to burst. He was leaning closer, his face a hairsbreadth away from her face-

_Peck_

He leaned away from her, a smirk on his face, but also a very faint blush. "See ya, Ames!" And then he was gone. But Amy Rose wasn't upset. She was too busy pressing a fingertip to her lips where he had kissed her to acknowledge anything but the warm, tingling feelings in her heart and her shaking knees.

**Between Two Lungs - Florence and the Machine**

"It's all in the way he looks at you," Rouge said to Amy Rose one day. "If he looks at you like he annoyed, that's a bad sign. If he looks at you like you're the world dangled in front of his eyes, run, run fast. Those guys are nuts, and while they're romantic for a bit, they're clingy and annoying."

Amy cringed. She had a feeling she looked like that when she saw Sonic. "Great," she muttered. "I'm crazy."

"You've gotten a lot better," Rouge consoled her. "I mean, compared to what you _used_ to be like, you're like a new girl. Not that you were completely awful. Once you got the initial squealing out, you were pretty manageable."

"Anyway," she continued. "If he looks at you like he's a little troubled, but still happy, that's a really, really good sign. It means he likes you a lot, but isn't sure what to do about it. That's good, because you can wear him down from there."

"What do I look like when I see Sonic?" Amy asked suddenly. Rouge looked at her and a slow grin spread across her face. "Amy, you light up like a firefly when you see him."

"Is that good?"

"Well, for him it is."

And now the dreaded, horrible question that she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to. "What does he look like when he sees me? To you, I mean."

Rouge just gave her that secretive smile and said, "You'll find out sooner or later, I'm sure. He's not that patient."

"Oh, come on, Rouge, I really want to know!"

"I know. That's what makes the fact that you're oblivious so much funnier."

**Tonight's the Night - P!nk**

A black tube top and red short shorts. Black sandal heels, and a pair of red earrings. A black bow holding her quills away from her face, and red lipstick on her mouth. Amy Rose looked damn good, and what's more, she knew it.

She was meeting Rouge and Cream for a Ladies Night, and after dinner and movie, they were going to drop Cream off and then go dancing at Rouge's club. None of them had heard from the boys in two weeks, and they had decided that they didn't care and they wanted to go have fun.

The dinner conversation was hilarious as they recounted stories that didn't involve the guys at all, and the movie was perfect, full of fighting action and good plot, and afterwards they went out for ice cream and a drive to nowhere. Cream didn't get home until midnight, the poor thing, but the older girls felt extremely gratified as the little girl staggered into her house with a big grin on her face.

About three hours later, the other two were in the VIP room drinking and trying to decide if they should fly out to Spagonia that night for a week. "If we left now, right now, we'd get there at mightnight," slurred Rouge. "I mean misnight. I mean-"

"Party Night!" crowed Amy Rose.

"Party Night! Hell yeah!"

They woke up about a day later in a hotel room in Spagonia, sprawled on a sofa, with a bunch of strangers laying around them, also in drunken stupors. Their makeup was smeared, their shoes missing, and their clothes, while thankfully still on their bodies, were rumpled and disheveled. Also Rouge was holding a ruby necklace.

The two girls stared at it for a minute before looking at each other. "This necklace," Amy Rose announced, "is not mine."

"Well, it's mine now," grinned Rouge. They then decided to leave as quickly as possible in case it was stolen. Just to be safe, they hired a private jet. They agreed on the way back that the event would never be spoken of again. Later on when the boys demanded to know what the two of them had been doing, it was a lot more fun to keep it a secret than to tell.

**Highway Unicorn - Lady Gaga**

"He's like a unicorn, hun," they told her. "You got about as much chance of catching Sonic as you do catching one of those."

"Then I better get to work on it," she told them. And that was exactly what she did. Intensive endurance training, fight practice, survival skills, and most importantly, a killer wardrobe.

"You're never gonna catch him," they told her. "You've been trying for, what six, seven years? What makes you think you'll get him now?

"Because I'm amazing," she would say, and flash that glorious, bright-as-the-sun smile at them. "And guys like amazing girls."

"He runs whenever he sees you!" they argued, "so why keep trying?"

She would just sling her hammer over her shoulder and walk onwards in the direction of her blue hero. "Because something as rare as a unicorn needs to be seen. And I won't waste my time and life waiting for one to waltz into my backyard."

She never heard their arguments. She forgot all about them. Because who can listen to critics when the man (or hedgehog) of your dreams is watching you like he's never seen you before, and he's smiling?

**Timebomb - P!nk**

Sonic was staring at it like it was radioactive or something. Like the icing would jump up and attach itself to his face. Amy Rose was standing in front of him holding a homemade cake in her hands, waiting for him to take it, but he wasn't. Eventually the happy expression her face slid away to be replaced with a scowl.

"It's a cake, not a bomb, Sonic," she growled at him. "Do you want it or not?"

"Uh… It's just…" He'd been like this around her for weeks, months even, and she'd had enough. All she wanted was to make him a cake that she knew he'd like, and share an enjoyable afternoon with him. What was he so freaked out about? She wasn't a twelve-year-old, borderline obsessive anymore. Okay, yes, she still hugged him when she saw him, but nothing like she used to. She was fed up with the way he had been treating her, and this was the last straw. She let him have it, telling him exactly what she thought, uncut and unabridged.

"There's nothing in there, Sonic. There's eggs, flour, sugar, etc, etc. If you're so fucking worried about me putting shit like narcotics in there, then why'd you fucking invite me to your party?" She unceremoniously dumped the cake onto a table laden with presents and then turned on her heels to walk out, giving him the middle finger as she went. "Happy fucking Birthday, Sonic. Hope you enjoy it. Don't bother calling or anything, I don't want my day ruined."

**The Great Escape - P!nk**

Amy Rose alone, sitting on the sand at the edge of the beach. She had left home without saying a word to anyone but Cream, after asking her not to reveal where she was to anyone.

Her pink fur was bathed in the light of the setting sun, bleaching out the color so it looked almost beige. There was no one else around, and that was how she liked it. She felt alone, and that's how she wanted to be.

It didn't last, of course.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and she didn't bother looking around to see who it was. A pair of red sneakers stood next to her for a moment before they moved, as the owner of the shoes sat down beside her, blue legs stretched out, a stark contrast to her own pink legs, folded up with her arms wrapped around them. She didn't say anything for a few minutes, and neither did he. And then he spoke.

"I'm sorry, Amy."

She scoffed. "Yeah, sure you are."

"You know I am," he replied, his voice serious and quiet. "I wouldn't come after you if I wasn't sorry and worried."

"Oh, just leave me alone, Sonic!" she shouted at him, turning to face him finally. "I've had enough of all this! I chase you, you run. I try to talk to you, you run. I try to ask you if you've seen Tails, and you run. You know what, if I'm so disgusting to you, then just tell me, okay? Don't bother to try to smooth things over with me. I'm done. I'm finished. I'm just not interested in doing this anymore, okay? Just… just go away." Tears were coming to her eyes now, and she fought them back desperately, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing that he'd made her cry (again).

She stood to leave, but he grabbed her arm and yanked her back down to him. She gave an 'oof!' and then turned to slap him. "Leave me the hell alone!"

"No." He kept a firm grip on her arm, and turned her so that she was staring at him. "Amy Rose, I really, truly am sorry. I know I've been a jerk. I shouldn't have said what I did, and I've regretted it from the moment I said it. I didn't mean it, I was just angry." The girl said nothing, and he continued, gently. "I know you think that what you do isn't that big of a deal, but it can be stifling. I know you don't mean it to be, but it comes off that way sometimes. But that doesn't excuse how I reacted. It was wrong of me. I should never have shouted at you, and I promise to do my best to never do it again."

Amy was watching him, doubt in her eyes. "You won't promise to never do it?"

"No. Because I might lose it someday and yell at you again. I can't promise I'll never, ever do it again. But I can promise that I'll do my utmost to avoid it, and to avoid trying to hurt you again. I'm not letting you go, Amy," he said solemnly. "You aren't checking out on me now. We're gonna see this thing through until the end, whether we like it or not."

"Why?!" she shouted furiously. "Why can't you just leave me be?!"

"I can't. I run because it's my nature, but not because you make me unhappy. It's because I'm an escape artist. I run from things I can't handle. Its instinct. But I won't run from you, Amy," he told her. "I may not be able to stay in one place for too long, but I won't run away."

"Oh, you can't promise you'd yell, but you'd promise you'd stick around with me? Very convincing, Sonic," said Amy bitterly. "I'll be sure to mark this on a calendar."

"You know it's true."

"No I don't!"

"But you want it to be." He told her. "So you'll believe it, even if you try not to. You wait and see, Amy. You know I'm not the kind of guy to joke about this sort of thing. If you don't believe me now, wait a bit. You'll see for yourself." And Amy Rose found herself unable to argue with him. She never could for long.

**Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous - Good Charlotte**

"God, I hate celebrities," groaned Sonic as he lounged on the cough in Tails' workshop. "All they do is complain about nothing. He pitched his voice into a high falsetto, putting a pathetic look on his face. "OMG, today, like, there was this paparazzi, and, like, he took a picture of me without makeup, and OMG, I totally cannot cope with it."

Tails rolled his eyes, but laughed. Amy Rose was sitting in an armchair giggling at the imitation. "What brought this on anyway?" asked the fox.

"Oh, they were doing some stupid interview outside the courthouse when I was jogging past there. I didn't feel like putting up with the crowds so I left after a while, though."

"Too bad," commented Amy, flipping through a magazine. "You could have heckled him or something."

"Yeah," said Sonic languidly. "Probably should have-" Suddenly, the blue hedgehog sat straight up, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "Oh, no," said Tails. "I don't like that look. What are you thinking?"

But the blue blur wasn't listening. "Be back in a minute!" he said, and then with a small pop indicating a burst of Sonic speed, he was gone.

"I don't like where this is going," Tails said to Amy. "I really don't like where this is going. The last time he got that look, he set the Tornado's engine on fire."

Amy opened her mouth to reply, but then Sonic was back, laying on the floor, doubled over with laughter. The two others stared at the hysterical hedgehog for a moment before looking at each other. "Sonic, what did you do?!" demanded Amy Rose.

He couldn't speak through his cackles, but lifted a hand to point at the television set. Tails quickly turned it on, and the two of them stared at the screen as yet another whiny celebrity was being interviewed on the street. He was whining about someone hitting his car, and then suddenly Sonic was standing in front of him. "Yeah, it sucks about your car, man," the Hedgehog Hero said. "Just the other day I was almost skinned alive by a Murder Machine made by Eggman. The day before that, I was almost melted in an acid bath by some creep. But you know, it's worthwhile risking my life so that I can save the lives of people like you who love to tell us about the troubles of your life. Like the fact that someone accidentally rear-ended your car. Too bad you can't afford to fix it. Oh, wait, you can."

And then Sonic was gone, leaving the interviewer and interviewee standing there flabbergasted and shocked. The expressions caused both Amy and Tails to join Sonic in his mirth. "You may be a celebrity, but at least you don't complain like they do," chortled Tails. "At least, not unless there's no chili dogs."

"Don't be silly, Tails," said Amy. "Sonic's not a celebrity. He's a hero."

The blush that appeared on said hero's muzzle was incriminating, but when he stared at the floor so Amy wouldn't notice, it sealed Sonic's fate. Within an hour, Tails had made sure that Knuckles and all of Team Chaotix heard about Sonic's bashful moment and tormented him about it for a week.

**This Guy's In Love - Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass**

For two years Amy Rose hadn't said, even once, that she loved Sonic the Hedgehog. She had hugged him on occasion, and told him he was handsome. But not once had she said she loved him, or hinted at marriage, or even said that she was his girlfriend. At first Sonic had found it a refreshing break (he _liked_ her, sure, but the constant fawning got old pretty quick), but now it was pissing him off to no end.

Or so Amy had been told by Tails. Her hero never gave any indication that her lack of romantic interest in him bothered him in the slightest. That hurt. Quite a bit actually. But she had made up her mind a while ago that if he wanted to be more than friends, he'd have to make the first move. She'd let him know how she felt, and now the ball was in his court. The problem was, he'd had the ball for quite some time and hadn't done anything with it.

She was now eighteen years old, and Sonic was twenty one. They had both been on a few causal dates with others here and there, but nothing serious. Amy had tried, but she always found herself thinking of a certain tall drink of blue water, and Sonic stuck to his guns about not being the kind to settle down. But he seemed to get awful antsy whenever she was seen with a guy.

Yes, she was getting out there more often. But was she still in love with Sonic? Oh, hell yes. But she had decided that saying "I love you" constantly would make it seem less real, and so she had stopped it. Then she had stopped glomping him every times she saw him. Then she had stopped chasing him altogether. It had been about six months since she'd gone after him, and she was starting to lose hope of him ever saying anything to her.

And then one day she found him waiting outside her door. He wasn't smiling, just watching her with a serious expression. _Oh, dear_.

"Hey, Sonic," she said, forcing herself to stay calm. What's up?"

"Haven't seen you around lately," he said easily, stretching his arms up. Amy felt her mouth go dry. His body was well muscled after years of fighting and running, and she had to stop herself from suddenly drooling over his muscular chest. He was still slender, because that was just his frame, but he wasn't all sticks and twigs anymore. Not that he had ever really been that way.

"No, I guess not," she said casually.

"How come?"

_Play it cool, play it cool_. "Well, I figured that I could do a lot of useful things with the time I spent chasing you around."

There was now a definite scowl on Sonic's face. "Like what?"

_Ohgodohgodohgodohgodthinkofs omething!_ "Like cooking," she said lamely. "And cleaning. And, um, making friends-"

"Like that _kid_ over there?" Sonic asked nodding his head in the direction of a brown cat who was waving at Amy. Sonic's voice suggested that he found the other male little better than a cockroach.

Amy followed his gaze. "Oh, that's Ryan! He asked me to the movies last night."

Sonic's eye twitched. Then he was by Ryan's side. Amy blinked. She never really got used to him being one place and then another within a blink of an eye. She had no idea what Sonic was saying to the poor individual, but from the look on Ryan's face it was nothing pleasant. And then two seconds later he was sprinting down the sidewalk away from Sonic, who now had a very smug look. Then Sonic was standing next to Amy, trying to appear stern. "Okay, Ames, I'm gonna make this real simple for you. It's a yes or no answer to a question. And my question is whether or not you still like me. Because you've been acting like I'm a stranger lately, and I don't like it at all. One second I'm thinking you've moved on, and the next you're calling me up asking if I want a chili dog. Make up your mind. If you don't like me, then say so right now."

Amy's jaw dropped. Had the sun crashed into the moon at that very moment, she probably wouldn't have noticed. "I-I thought you hated it when I chased you."

"No, I hated it when you constantly talked about wedding bells and all that crap."

"Sonic, I haven't done that in years!"

"I know. It's driving me nuts."

"WHAT?! You just said it drove you nuts when I did it!"

"Yeah, but at least it reminded me that you still CARED!"

"You are such an IDIOT! One second you're talking about how my glomps and chases and all that drive you up the wall, and the next you're telling me not to stop! Well you tell me this, Sonic the Hedgehog, what's in it for me?" Amy Rose challenged him, hands on hips. "I've been hoping for a date for years and got nothing out of it. Why would I give you all that attention if I'm not getting any back, huh?"

"Maybe if you hadn't been so clingy I would have!"

"Clingy?! I haven't been clingy in ages! And you've had plenty of chances to ask me out! You haven't done it yet!"

"Maybe I don't know how you feel about me!"

Amy stared at him for about two seconds before she slapped him upside the head. "You are a MORON!" she shouted. "I'm CRAZY about you! You're wonderful and amazing and funny and sweet and I love you and all you do is wonder if I care! Ever thought that I might be giving you space to make up your mind?!"

"Oh yeah?! Well maybe I HAVE made up my mind, you pushy, pink-!"

"Then what is it?!" Amy shouted at him.

And then suddenly he had his hands on her cheeks and he was pulling her in for the biggest, deepest kiss she had ever received in her entire eighteen years of life. All the strength in her knees was sucked right up, and her body went as limp as a noodle. The kiss felt like it lasted a year, and even when Sonic pulled back she wished it was longer. She also wished that she had been sitting down when he kissed her because she found herself crumbling to her front yard, her mouth open from shock when it was done. Sonic kneeled down next to her. "Well?" he demanded.

She stared at him. "Well, what?"

He huffed. "So do you wanna go out with me or not?"

"You didn't even ask!"

"What do you think THAT was?!"

"I don't know, a declaration of love."

"No," he corrected her. "THIS is a declaration of love." And looking straight into her eyes he said, as serious as could be, meaning every word "I love you. Will you out with me?"

_How is it that he always finds a way to strike me dumb?_ Amy mused to herself before nodding at Sonic.

But he shook his head. "Uh-uh," he told her. "Say it. The whole, long thing."

She rolled her eyes. "Sonic, I love you, and I'll go out with you."

And THERE was that sexy, confidant smirk. "There we go," he purred, and then his lips were on hers again, and although Amy hadn't heard them in quite some time, she vaguely thought she noticed the faint chiming of wedding bells somewhere in the back of her mind.

* * *

There we go. All done. Written in one day. Not too shabby if I do say so myself.

I really love the Sonic/Amy pairing, but yes, she is pretty clingy. When she's NOT clingy she's really sweet and supportive though, and I like that about her a lot. I think she's partially so obsessed because she's a teenager in the games, and if you've ever had a teenage crush, you know that it can get pretty out of hand. But I do think she wants the best for Sonic, which I also like about her. I think that if she got a bit older she'd chill out and calm down. And then I think her hero might be more than a little interested in her. Anyway, that's the story. I really hope you guys liked it enough to review. Bye for now!


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